Granta Park, Cambridge

TWI

As the world’s largest provider of essential industrial skills training to service oil and gas, aerospace, construction, power and transport sectors, TWI need the highest standards of training facilities at their headquarters site. The training school operates a wide variety of destructive and non-destructive testing courses that provide internationally recognised certification.

The school was ready to move to a new home in Cambridge’s Granta Park, providing an opportunity to enhance its facilities and make best use of the space it was moving in to. The client turned to TFT to deliver the work, as there was a tight time frame between inception and the target go live date, as well as requirements for cost control and a need to deliver high quality space.

TFT took an employer’s agent, principal designer and M&E engineering role, providing initial design consultancy and developing a detailed client brief for the works. We advised on procurement route and delivered a tender exercise with recommendation for appointing a design and build contractor. We arranged building contracts and delivered the project on site, chairing site meetings handling cost control, monitoring works and snagging and liaising regularly with stakeholders.

The project provided the training school with new first-class facilities. The TWI’s new home features lecture theatres and practical rooms that can accommodate 104 trainees over 7 rooms of varying sizes and layouts, allowing the school to upscale its course offering. The rooms all have excellent ventilation/cooling, acoustics and AV equipment. Glass partitions are used within the fit-out to enable natural light to infiltrate deeper into the space, opening up additional breakout space.

The works were delivered in an 8 month programme, with 4 months of construction. The resulting space gives the school the best base on which to grow and deliver more of its crucial testing and training programmes, providing invaluable industry skills for generations to come.

Project Manager and head of the Cambridge TFT office, Peter Wyld, further added “Working in a live building always presents challenges. Diligent planning at the front end of the project can often aid the smooth running of the construction process. By putting in place the right communication channels and working structures we were able to maintain good health and safety practices which allowed the continued, un-interruption of adjacent operations. TWI undertake a broad variety of work which includes business sensitive activities and ongoing engagement with the facilities and security team allowed the construction work to take place without impacting on these tasks.”